Should my fiance take this job if it's offered to him?

My fiance lost his job last week (more like laid off, no fault of his own) and has been looking for new work ever since. We live together with another couple and, until now, he was making almost $14/hr here in SC at a factory. He applied for unemployment and he finds out how much he’ll be getting on Friday. Chances are it won’t be enough to cover his part of the bills and I’ll have to chip in more. His goal is to find a job before he needs to collect unemployment.

He got a job interview with the Home Depot Warehouse in our area. They have a full time position at $10.75/hr. He’s also applied at quite a few other places and is waiting to hear back. Tomorrow he’s going out searching some more. If the interview goes well and he is offered the position, we’re debating on whether he should take it right away or tell them he needs two weeks.

One one hand, what if they deny him the position because he can’t start immediately? On the other hand, what if he takes the job and is offered a better one shortly after? He doesn’t want to have a reputation of “job hopping”, but he needs to be able to support himself, and quick. He won’t take the job if they can’t offer him at least 40 hours a week, because if they don’t give him that it wouldn’t even be worth it.

He has 7 years of work experience (and he’s only 21), 5 of those years was installing hardwood floors. The other two have been warehouse experience and he is forklift certified. He generally hasn’t had a hard time finding work, but being laid off really put a lot of stress on both of us.

What really worries me about this job is that there was a local article stating that the Home Depot warehouse was hiring 100 part time employees in October of last year. All of the comments stated something like, “Yeah, 100 part time employees to replace the 50 full time employees they laid off” or “gearing up for the holidays”. This is the first time he’s ever been let go, and for that to happen again would be awful. Is is okay to ask during an interview when the last time they laid employees off was?

What would you suggest he do?